Twenty-five percent

Nearly ten years ago I retired from my position at Queen Mary University of London. Someone told me then, “You don’t get retirement right first time, you have to keep practising.”

Only too true. The University of St Andrews offered Rosemary and me half-time jobs on three-year renewable contracts. After three of these, and following Rosemary’s accident (a difficult and exhausting time for both of us), we have decided to go down to 25% from today.

Do I expect anything to change? Will I have lots of time to catch up on the many jobs that are not getting done very speedily? You can probably imagine. My current teaching will continue for the rest of the semester unchanged.

But after that, we will see if I can take things a little easier.